Goodenough, Ward Hunt

Anthropologist Ward Goodenough has ably bridged the gap between traditional ethnology and studies of cultural change. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1919, he was educated at Cornell and Yale Universities and taught at the University of Wisconsin from 1945-49 before joining the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. He was appointed professor of anthropology in 1962 and became University Professor Emeritus in 1989. Dr. Goodenough's interests include cultural and linguistic anthropology; social organization; anthropology of law; culture theory; and semantics. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in Oceania, from Micronesia to New Guinea, and he has served as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford (1958), as president of the American Ethnological Association (1962) and the Society for Applied Anthropology (1963), and as editor of The American Anthropologist (1966-70). His publications include Property, Kin and Community of Truk (1951), Native Astronomy in the Central Carolinas. (1953) and Cooperation in Change (1963). Along with his anthropological work, Dr. Goodenough also writes poetry and composes music.

From the guide to the Ward H. Goodenough Papers, ca. 1940s-1990s, 1940-1999, (American Philosophical Society)